Request By:
Mr. Melvin B. Henley
City Councilman
104 S. Ninth Street
Murray, Kentucky 42071
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of March 24 in which you request an opinion concerning the following:
"1. Is there incompatibility in holding the office of Mayor of a third-class city while retaining a faculty position of Associate Professor at a Regional University?
"2. Do you feel that the courts might hold that a common law incompatibility exists in the above-cited situation?"
Our response to your question would be in the negative in so far as a possible constitutional or statutory conflict is concerned. The office of mayor is of course a municipal office and the position of Associate Professor of Murray State University would be a form of state employment. Murray State University is of course a state agency and its employes are state employes. See
Daniel's Adm'r. v. Hoofnel, 287 Ky. 834, 155 S.W.2d 469 (1941).
Section 165 of the Constitution and KRS 61.080 do not prohibit a state employe from holding a municipal office and, as a consequence, no incompatibility would exist between the referred to positions.
There is, of course, always a possibility of a common law conflict, however, this is a question of fact which only the courts can determine as pointed out in OAG 77-146 [copy attached].
We also note from the enclosed letter that the University has no policy or regulation prohibiting a faculty member from holding a municipal office.